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Ace took a long time to wrap his head around the idea of ‘soulmarks’.
Dadan did a shitty job of explaining, when he was little, and could finally put into words the confusion about the black lines on his skin. Gramps did worse, on his next visit, which meant Ace just put the whole subject into the same box inside his head labelled Shit to Not Talk About.
Sabo, though. Sabo finally helped him get it. And not with stupid tangled words, either.
After the third or fourth time they fought each other tooth and nail in the Grey Terminal, Ace stopped by a stream on his way back to Dadan’s place, to rinse out the new cuts on his arms so they wouldn’t risk getting infected or something. At the same time, he unwound the cloth strips always kept around his hands, hiding the weird jumble of black lines on each palm-
Except. There weren’t just weird lines on one hand, anymore.
Dark and light shades of blue filled in the blank space, curling out and around the marks already there, making an impression of smoke dancing away into the wind. Ace stared, for a long time. Alarmed. Uncertain.
He was still sitting there a while later, when he heard the sound of footsteps coming up the path behind him. Small footsteps. Ace-sized footsteps.
Or rather, Sabo-sized.
A look over his shoulder sure enough revealed the other boy, panting and wide-eyed, skidding to a stop on the bare dirt as soon as he noticed Ace by the stream. On one hand, he still wore a glove, white cloth smudged with grey and the fingers full of holes. The other, though. His other hand was bare, and Ace could see a different swirling design: bright red and orange, a spark exploding into flame.
For a long minute, neither of them said a word, didn’t move a muscle. But then Ace took a deep breath, and lifted his own marked hand into view. Sabo looked at it, looked at the smoke pattern, and his face broke into a wide, delighted grin.
They each have a Claimed Mark on one palm, an Unclaimed on the other. Ace also has a big collection of indistinct lines on his back, while Sabo’s got a smaller set curled over his heart.
“They’re halves of a whole, until you find the person on the other side,” the other boy explained, that first day, after Ace found a decent tree for them to spend the night in, not Dadan’s hideout or the Terminal, but a spot that could be theirs, in-between. “People can have a bunch, or just a few, or maybe one or none at all. Either they’re already on your skin when you’re born, or they show up when the other person is, and once they’re Claimed it’s a connection that never goes away.”
It takes a few years, but Ace gradually comes around to liking the idea of people he can be connected to for good reasons. Sabo quickly turns into his best friend, and the two of them use that same hiding place tree to start stashing stolen money and treasure, saving up to someday buy a pirate ship and set sail, free to go wherever the wind takes them. Maybe they’ll find the people with the other halves of their Unclaimed marks; maybe not. Either way, Ace likes having Sabo at the other end of his soul, likes being able to press wicked amusement or tired exasperation along the bond that’s formed between them, and get a response back, always.
Maybe the other people will be just as good. But whether they are or aren’t, like Sabo said, it’s a connection that never goes away. And Ace, eventually, sees that as a good thing.
...that said.
When Luffy shows up, a full ten soulmarks marching down his arms to his own palms, Ace can’t help but scoff. That many people? Who needs that many soulbound connections, except a baby constantly seeking attention? Yet another reason to leave the annoying little twerp behind each day when he heads off to meet Sabo at the Terminal.
Or at least, Ace tries to leave him behind, employing one mean trick after another to knock it into Luffy’s head that he isn’t wanted. Which only lasts for so long.
It’s a mixed bag the day the little shit does manage to follow him all the way to the Terminal, to the hidden treasure tree. Quickly, Ace and Sabo knock him out and tie him up, then start arguing about who should deal the fatal blow - only for some of Bluejam’s crew to show up, which is bad, and then they catch Luffy, which is worse, because it is NOT going to take much for that little chatterbox to blab about the hiding place with their stolen goods. Ace grits his teeth as the pirates leave, taking the stupid twerp with them; if nothing else, once they get what they want from Luffy and cut him loose, the kid should be scared enough not to bother ever following Ace out here again.
At that point all thoughts of Luffy need to be put aside, to focus on clearing out and moving his and Sabo’s treasure as fast as they fucking can.
It takes him way too long to notice the pain that starts up in his hand, the left one, with its Unclaimed mark still kept covered with a bandage strip. Like a bunch of tiny needles, stabbing over and over, making it throb. Not until the last box has been stashed in a new hiding place, deeper in the jungle, does Ace let himself stretch in the fading sunlight, and finally acknowledge that his hand really hurts.
Which is also about the time Sabo comes dashing up to the base of the new tree, calling out that the pirates never let Luffy go.
Blue smoke.
Red fire.
And yellow sunshine.
They notice in the middle of bandaging Luffy’s many, many puncture wounds, everywhere that Porchemy hit him with those stupid spiked gloves and drew blood. The idiot’s got both their marks on his palms, now, and when they check their own hands, there’s a repeated symbol of yellow sunlight pouring out from behind white, swirly clouds.
It’s. Kind of a matched set? If Ace doesn’t think about it too much. That said - after they exchange cups of sake, after they upset Dadan one too many times and decide to build themselves a treehouse to live in rather than the bandit hideout, when he and Sabo carefully paint their new ASL flag, the border is lined with swirling fire and dancing smoke and happy sunshine.
Sabo’s father lets out a sharp, disdainful tsk at the sight of his soulmarks. “We’ll get you clean gloves to cover those with, right away.”
The words take Ace’s heart, already on the verge of breaking, and shatter it to pieces.
He never asked, what happens when a soulmate dies. The question never occurred. Sure, he and his brothers ran alongside death every day, tearing through the jungle, sneaking into the city, fleeing from guards and people they robbed and annoyed Grey Terminal scavengers all the time.
But not like this.
Never just- gone.
Gone faster than smoke, fading into the wind.
The mark on his right hand stays bright blue, a bitter reminder, a warning Ace can only see in hindsight: fuel that burned too fast, and vanished before you could try and stop it. It hurts, a vicious bone-deep ache, and he can’t feel anything except an empty echo through their bond, more of that pain that must have filled Sabo’s last moments. He almost wishes the mark would disappear - almost wishes he’d never gained it in the first place.
Almost.
Instead, after he makes his promise to Luffy, swearing he’ll never die, Ace decides to go back to wrapping his palm. Get a bandage to hide Sabo’s smoke away, if only until the mere glimpse of it stops bringing tears to his eyes. And that night, slowly traipsing back to Dadan’s hideout (not their treehouse. Maybe, at some point, but- he can’t go back right now), Ace heads for the chest that holds a bunch of medical supplies. He reaches for it, reaches to get a strip of soft white cloth- but a broad hand closes around his forearm first.
“What,” Ace demands, too quiet, too subdued. Dadan just frowns at him. Or rather, frowns at the blue smoke on his palm.
“Has this faded at all?” She asks.
Ace blinks.
Apparently, something does happen when one half of a soulbond dies. The marks never fully go away, but they fade, like old ink when it’s left out in the sunlight too often.
Sabo’s mark hasn’t faded. Not on Ace, not on Luffy.
Apparently, Sabo is still alive.
Searching Dawn Island from coast to coast doesn’t turn up anything. Dogra and a few more of the bandits sneak into Goa after the World Noble leaves, taking his stupid massive ship and brother-shooting gun with him, but they can’t find a single sign of Sabo either. It’s like he vanished, after his stolen boat was blown up, but they don’t know where to.
But then, a week after Sabo’s stupid final message showed up, apologizing for leaving and making Ace promise to look after Luffy, he feels it. He feels the bond.
On Ace’s other side, Luffy’s warm sunshine brightens like a supernova as he feels it too. The stirring. The confusion. The panic. Sabo IS alive- but he’s alarmed, he must not be safe, he’s still hurting if the dull throbbing in their hands is anything to go by which all means they need to FIND him-
A slight brush. Tentative. Reaching out.
Ace reaches back.